Qualcomm in talks to bury the hatchet with Huawei

Chipmaker Qualcomm is in talks to settle a patent dispute with China’s Huawei and the word on the street is that the pair will reach an agreement in the coming weeks.

The negotiations between Qualcomm and Huawei have been going quite well, and although neither side has spilt the beans on the record, it does seem that both are optimistic that things will be sorted out soon.

Qualcomm has been in dispute with two major patent licence customers: Apple and an unnamed licensee that stopped paying royalties in April 2017. Analysts believed that licensee was Huawei.

During a January earnings call with investors, Qualcomm general counsel Don Rosenberg said the company was still in talks with Huawei, as it had been since the dispute was first disclosed.

“On the unnamed other licensee [Huawei] , our practice is ... it’s productive to continue with negotiations and that we don’t name the licensee in the dispute. It’s only when we get to the point where we feel like we’ve exhausted all practical activities there (that Qualcomm would name the customer), and so you should take that as we’re still negotiating to see if we can resolve the dispute”, Rosenberg told investors.

If Qualcomm does sort out the issue with Huawei it will mean that only Apple is refusing to pay up. It also means that Broadcom's argument that life would be better if it was doing all the licensing deals probably do not hold water.